41 percent of Michigan voters said they're fans of the University of Michigan; 31 percent root for Sparty, while 28 percent said they're unsure.

As a matter of contrast, in February, PPP's numbers pegged fandom in Michigan as 37 percent Wolverines, 31 percent Sparty, and 32 percent "not a fan of either school." (a slightly different response option than May's survey).

A note of caution: PPP is an automated pollster (versus live response), and some outfits contend these results tend to be less reliable. PPP is also considered a Democratic pollster, because of the work it does for Democratic campaigns. I'm trying to add full disclosure; these numbers are intended more as a fun discussion point.

While they are definitely "partisan" in that they work for one party, historically they are very accurate. Nate Silver over at fivethirtyeight.com does analysis on pollster accuracy and if I recall PPP is usually among the top group.

MSU fans will brag about this and start talking about a certain giant global retailer.

Edit: And apparently somewhat thought this was an overrated comment. But it's a true comment. MSU fans love to brag about how they have less fans because they usually just have fans that graduated from MSU (or so they claim), not "Walmart Wolverines." It's stupid, but that's what MSU fans will perceive this stat in trying to favor it towards MSU.

I think Sparty's 31% would be higher if they weren't so uncoothe towards the "non-alumni" fans (i.e. Walmart shoppers). I love that we're open to all fans (alum and non-alums) and I'm sure Dave Brandon is as well.

It's not necessarily that MSU fans are unwelcoming to Wal-Marters it's that any Wal-Mart fan type would generally gravitate toward the more successful program. Hence the skewed fandom toward Michigan. No one would voluntarily root for Sparty, that's senseless.

Weird results. I bet alligiances in the city of Detroit has something to do with the party breakdown. Also interesting that the women vote for Sparty was higher than for men, and yet democrats favored UM (you'd there'd be a relation b/w female and democratic vote). Also interesting that the school fandom by party changed so radically in a few months. The first report was:

The recent poll has all three groups, which shows the sharp difference between Democrats and Republicans. The older poll has only Obama voters (Democrats + some independents) and McCain voters (Republicans + some independents). The differences were watered down in that poll by the requirement that everyone who voted had to be either in the "Democrat" group (Obama) or the "Republican" group (McCain).

Here's the routine; Public Policy Polling commissions its own poll. They do popular-interest items and they seem to have a penchant for college football. (Can anybody think of anything, religion and politics included, that stratifies and divides demographic groups like college football?) PPP releases it as press release. The newspapers, looking for lazily-supplied free content, publish it. The readers love it. PPP gets its name into press. Free content for the paper, free adverstising for PPP.

hence the R/D breakdown is exactly what we should expect. I don't think many people would dispute that the regional loyalty breakdown is West side for Sparty, East side for the Maize and Blue. Party breakdown is West side for the GOP, East side for the Dems. QED